Weekly Update on Homeless Stories in the News

Here are a few interesting news stories about homelessness from the last week.  Click on the blue text to view the source article.

• If you want to end homelessness, studies suggest it is as simple as giving individuals a house, and then dealing with the causes.
• Baltimore has a housing crisis and a homelessness crisis, in which roughly 16,000 houses are vacant and 30,000 people are homeless throughout the year. Housing our Neighbors proposes we turn these vacant houses into affordable housing for the homeless and low-income persons.
• Cities are continuously enacting laws that criminalize homelessness that are often counter-productive.
• The Navigation Center in San Francisco provides a different type of homeless shelter that is less restrictive and more accommodating.
• One school in New York City offers an interesting course on architecture for development that helps low-income groups and does so in both a plausible and inventive ways.
• Portland, Maine recently cut back on shelter services and shut down a homeless shelter. Many residents were not happy with this decision and protested at the city hall.
• New ambitious program in Miami, Florida to build up to 1,000 affordable new housing units for extremely low-income individuals by raising money through private investments.
• The flawed annual count states 11,623 homeless people in D.C. this winter, a decrease of 2.7%, but does not paint the whole picture. Suburbs show increased homeless population and a diminishing number of affordable and available housing opportunities.  Cuyahoga County has a similar population and only counted around 2,000 people on the same day in January. 
• There has been a 12% increase in LA’s homeless population, an 85% increase in people living in cars or tents, and a 1,000 person drop-off in “sheltered” individuals according to the flawed point in time count. This report shows how temporary housing is important too.
• Armed services are often an escape from issues such as poverty, substance abuse, etc., but many individuals return to the environment that they sought to leave, which, in conjunction with health problems that arise from being in combat, leads veterans to be an at-risk population for homelessness.
• In Miami, Florida, a lack of public bathrooms downtown has caused a public health crisis, because there is nowhere for homeless people to use the restroom, and therefore must defecate in public spaces.
• Half of homeless youths are being put on the streets by their parents, 40% due to LGBTQ status.
• UN Human Rights Council, in its Universal Periodic Review of U.S., raises concern over U.S.’s lack of affordable housing and its criminalization of homelessness.
• Homeless people most often do not go to the hospital when sick or injured, so one doctor in Pittsburgh goes out to help them on the streets.  The Care Alliance doctor in Cleveland has also been going outside to serve people on the streets. 

by Dan the Intern

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